Singer Marva Wright to be buried Wednesday

Services have been scheduled for singer Marva Wright, 62, who died Tuesday.

Steven Foster / The Times-PicayuneMarva WrightA funeral service will be held at 10 a.m. Wednesday at New Hope Baptist Church, 1807 Lasalle St., New Orleans.

She will lie in state from noon until 6 p.m. Tuesday at Gallier Hall, 545 St. Charles Avenue, where a musical tribute is scheduled for 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Duplain W. Rhodes funeral home, 3933 Washington Ave. in New Orleans, is in charge of arrangements.

Enormously popular among fellow musicians, Ms. Wright moved easily between gospel spirituals and bawdy blues romps. In her late-blooming career, she released albums on local and international record labels, and performed across Europe, in Russia and Brazil, and at blues festivals around the United States. She drew large crowds at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival presented by Shell, and staged an annual Christmas concert at Tipitina's. Wright graduated from Booker T. Washington High School, then left Southern University in Baton Rouge after two years to marry her first husband. While raising her children, she confined her singing to home and church.

As her children grew up, she worked as a secretary at Eleanor McMain Secondary School. Encouraged to pursue singing as a profession, she wrestled with the notion of performing sacred gospel music in secular clubs. She consulted childhood friend and fellow gospel singer Jo "Cool" Davis, who urged her to make the leap.